This is day two of the lesson comparing stories. The starts with me reminding students that we can compare any two stories, although some are easier to compare than others. I also remind them that we compare and contrast with attention to story elements and other ways of analyzing a story. We may find similarities and differences for each category.

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We look at the Venn diagram that we made yesterday and reviewed some of the ways we thought of the story and then used the information to write down the similarities and differences between two stories.

Students compared characters, plot, setting, and theme. They found that for each of these elements, the stories had similarities and differences. The similarities where more basic themes that were common for fairytales such as characters being from royalty, a girl and guy, setting being in a palace or royal court, plot ending with the boy and girl romantically happy, and the theme being good versus evil. Each of these story elements were represented in the story with small differences. Through the previous lesson's activity, students realize that when they compare two stories, the story can be similar and different in many ways, not just all similar or all different.

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After I have read the story, The Turkey Girl, by Penny Polluck, I tell them that they will be comparing that story to Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters, by John Steptoe, which they already have information on from yesterday's Venn diagram.

Students spend time reviewing a list of story elements and characteristics in order to make the most complete comparison of those two stories. When they get stuck, I remind them to look back at the example they made the previous day and to check off the list.

This is used as an assessment to find out if students can collect information from the text as well as represent through comparing and contrasting it.